bucking the wheel hard. In front of him lay a pile of
gold-pieces and several stacks of chips. He was very red in the face
from excitement and cocktails. The range-rider put a half-dollar on the
red and won. He let it ride, won again, and shifted the chips to the
black. Once more the goddess of luck favored him. He divided his pile.
Half went on the red, the rest on the first number his eye caught. It
happened to be seventeen. The croupier spun the wheel again. The ball
whirled round, dipped down once or twice, and plumped into the
compartment numbered seventeen.

"Enough's a-plenty. Here's where I cash in," announced Steve cheerfully.

He stuffed the bills carelessly into his pocket and strolled over to the
faro table. Yeager had come on business, not for pleasure. He intended
to play just enough to give a colorable reason for his presence.

His roving eye settled upon the poker table at the rear of the room.
Five men were playing. Two were Mexicans, three white. Two of the
Americans were dismissed from Steve's mind with a casual glance. They
were negligible factors. The third had his back to the observer, but the
figure had a slender, boyish trimness that spoke of youth. The Mexican
sitting to his right was a square-built fellow of forty with a scar on
the cheek running from mouth to ear. There was on his face a certain
ugliness of expression, a furtive cruelty. That there was an
understanding between him and the man opposite soon became apparent to
Yeager. They cross-raised the boy, working together to mulct him of the
pile of chips in front of him.

It was the Mexican who sat with his back to the wall that drew and held
the cowpuncher's eye. He too was slender, not much past thirty, but with
the youth long since stamped out of his face. Sleek and black, a
dominant personality, he sat there warily as a rattlesnake, dark eyes
gleaming from a masked, smiling countenance.

The boy was the pigeon, and it was the Mexicans that were plucking him.
So much Steve learned within two minutes. He had cut his eye teeth at
poker, and he saw at a glance that this was no game for a youngster.
Quietly he moved a step or two closer along the wall. He observed the
play without appearing to do so.

The tension of the game was relieved with casual conversation. The two
negligibles, playing about even, contributed mostly to it. The bulky
Mexican added his quota. The boy, a heavy loser, concealed his feelings
under the bravado expect